We went camping this weekend up at Tallulah Gorge State Park. It's a nice park and we camped there once last year with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law. This year they all came back to join us for the trip. Friday night after we got set up and ate dinner, Eric decided to take the boys up to the playground right behind the bathhouse. My brother-in-law, Nathan, decided to go with them. When they get there, Riley wants to go down the slide so Eric helps him do that and had just picked him back up when Owen starts fussing and backing up. Nathan goes over to him to see what's wrong and the next thing Eric saw was Nathan jumping with both feet like he was jumping over a log and there was a SNAKE flying through the air. They weren't sure what kind of snake it was at that point but it had a triangular head which is indicative of a pit viper. Mother-in-law and sister-in-law rushed Nathan to the hospital (after he CARRIED Owen back to the campsite!!) and I went to get Riley from Eric so he could kill the snake.
Turns out it was "only" about 10 inches long and a baby copperhead. I heard from a couple of people who say that the babies can be more dangerous because they don't know how much venom to release so they release it all. Anyway, they gave him the antivenin treatments at the hospital, he was admitted and stayed about 36 hours. He's doing much better now and is (hopefully) resting at home.
So as a result, I spent my Mother's Day being thankful that both my boys were okay and able to be running around and playing. I'm not GLAD Nathan got bit, but I am glad my boys didn't get bit. I think Nathan's 6'5" body can handle the venom a lot better than my boys could have.
Here's the snake. Sorry it's a little blurry but Eric took it with his phone. You can kind of see in the middle of it's body where Eric beat it to a pulp, but being the smart person he is, he made sure not to hit it in the head so we would be able to identify it.
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